that means that from the time of trajan the roman state was running on borrowed time, living only on the gold from his dacian war and that when this run out the crisis began there was nothing anyone could do about it. hummm not sure about that. possible instead after the civil wars in 69 and the vast building programmes like the colluseum the bank was empty. trajan just refilled it with his dacian war and set things right again. all was fine till marcus time when war and disease upset things. but by the end of his time marcus had almost set things right again. had he lived on or had he chosen a competent man to follow him things could have went back to the way they were before.

The "Roman Empire" did survive Commodus and if you look into the existing sources you will find that this last of the Antonines was quite popular with the people, if not with the Senatorial class. The conflict with the latter accelerated after AD 190 and what you so willingly overlook is the career of Septimus Severus...as well as others. Your contention just does not wash and makes soap-bubbles of interpretative flow during the 4th century, given the fact that institutional history continued despite the incompetence of a host of would-be emperors and successors.

drgonzaga I see you're still trying...don't you see, what has been written is wrong...the Roman Empire actually collapsed the moment Commodus took the title and magically re-appeared when Basil II became emperor. Filled a void and skiped time. Must be as we provided evidence for our claims - and he is still going on with the original premise. :).

Well, es_bih, I am simply trying to preserve the intellectual integrity of the Forum in the event someone truly interested in the subject encounters the thread. Regretfully, one must make the time to defend Clio's honor from would-be "rapists".

guys relax im not trying to rape anything particularly clios honour, yes i agree the empire continued, yes i agree there were many competant emperors. im just suggested that perhaps if another man who was competant had followed marcus perhaps roman history would have been different. anyway im going to raise a white flag on this one before i give you both strokes. nice talking to you and i actually learnt a lot. take care huh

HH, no need to worry about my health, I've got insurance coverage up the wazoo! However, despite my colored language and Romantic allusions--shades of Europa and the randy bull--the point behind my caveats was a simple one: the Roman world as a cultural phenomenon still haunts us today, and your concern over decadence and decay is but a projection of a contemporary political bugaboo. The spectre of Rome shadows us as much as it did the political thinkers of the late Enlightenment--the book to read: J. G. A. Pocock. The Machiavellian Moment (1976).

will have a look at it soon as i can. actually the reason i was going on about this was because when i looked at the history of the empire it seemed that two things were most important the army and the emperor. if there was a strong emperor who commanded the respect of the army then despite problems like attacks from outside and disease pretty much all was ok. look at the first emperors they commanded respect and all was fine then caligula and nero lost that and the result was civil war. then comes along vespasian sets things right and starts a line of emperors respected by the army and up till the death of marcus all is fine. the commudus ruins that and after that its pretty much more about individual warlords grabing power. yes there some very competent ones and some commanded respect but the damage had been done and was never repaired despite the best efforts of diocletion.

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